All This Time
by Pillocase
Summary: Nobody ever considers the plight of a mother left alone at home. A nuzlocke story. (May be considered a homage to Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.)
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

She wasn't entirely sure, but it really did look like Samuel was crying. Until tonight, she had never seen him emote - but now, for the first time since she'd known him, he seemed driven to tears. For the first time since she'd known him, he seemed desperate. Across the massive wooden desk that stood like a wedge between them, for the first time in all this time, he seemed _human_.

But she'd tried compassion already. Compassion was the reason she had been stuck in the middle of nowhere for nineteen years. If she tried to be nice he'd just sucker her into more. There was no time for her to be nice. There was only time for her to be firm, to be strong, to be indepen-

 _\- oh gods, he really_ is _crying, isn't he…_

His hand was a wrinkly, greyish cloud, and through it a droplet fell to the plains of his lap, and then he heaved with a single, solitary sob, but it echoed, amplified, it reverberated in her head and around the room and in her head and she must reach out, hug him, say it would be all right and that she was there for him, just like she'd done to so many others before –

\- she remained silent. Stoic. In control. This was the time to say no, once and for all.

"Please…" murmured Samuel.

"No," she replied. _There._

"… Martha-"

"No!"

He had looked at her, lowered his hand to reveal shiny, bloodshot eyes and a mouth folded into a frightful frown – but at that word, a word which came out a lot more harshly than she meant it to, at that word he retreated again. And she felt an impulse to reach out, to touch him, to comfort – damn him, he was trying to soften her…

"Martha… Why?" It was a pitiful question, asked in a pitiful manner, by a pitiful person, but Martha forced herself not to feel any pity. She couldn't let herself feel any pity. She would have to steel herself, and feel no pity.

No remorse. No regrets. Regrets would only bring her back into that dreary old house, and remorse would lock her up for two decades longer. _Don't feel sorry for him, damn you –_

"I – I'm bored, and tired," she said. "I've been stuck here for – for ages, you know, _ages_ – I need to do something else, or I swear I'll, I'll go insane, Samuel…"

"But Martha…"

"I'm going stir crazy, Samuel! And – and I can't stir because there's nowhere for me to move and that means there's just more crazy –"

"But we need you, Martha!" He looked straight at her, his eyes like autumn puddles, his voice cracked and dry, as though he was crying all the moisture out of himself. "And you…"

"You – find someone else." Oh _gods_ … "I can't do it. I won't… No."

Samuel hadn't listened. He was looking down at his lap, gesturing with his mottled hands. "And Martha… I have been here just as long as you," he murmured. "We started these jobs together…"

And the problem was, he was right – he _had_ been here just as long as she, to the minute. But that was different. Nineteen years as a well-respected professor and former regional Champion, with frequent trips to Johto to do a radio show, that was interesting. Nineteen years of sitting around in a house, watching the ten-year-old _du jour_ run out the door to get their first Pokémon, that was not.

She had tried to care at first. She really had. Sending them off properly, making sure they were dressed and prepared for all sorts of weather, encouraging them as they set off with their sights on the Pokémon League – but they didn't care to stop and listen. They never did. She had watched through the window as they tore towards Viridian, followed them with her mind as they saw beyond the confines of Pallet, and eventually, hated them in her heart as they lived the life she wasn't allowed to live.

"… I'm sorry, Samuel," she said, shaking her head. _Be firm. Be strong._ "I can't do it any more. I – I – I need out. I need change. Don't –" _be firm, be strong,_ _ **be firm, be strong –**_ "don't take this away from me. Please."

"Martha. You don't understand… You don't know what happens if you leave… You don't know –"

"You don't know anything!" she shouted, and immediately regretted it. She might as well have punched him in the face. With bleary, bloodshot eyes he stared at her, silent, as his last tear crawled down towards his chin.

"… I… Samuel…"

"… Please…"

She swallowed. "… No, Samuel. That's my final word."

"But…"

"Don't try – don't try, Samuel, don't try to make me stay." _You're breaking, don't break, oh gods, you already broke –_ "I… need to leave. I can't take another day of this."

And she realised that he was completely empty. He had no more tears, no more strength, no more protests. Old Samuel Oak sank back in his chair, and waved uselessly with his hand. "… Then go," he said, so weakly that she almost had to strain her ears to hear it. "Just go. Leave us. I can't... Go. Please…"

She didn't know if the 'please' was a 'please go' or 'please don't do this'. She didn't want to know. She wanted out, out and away, before she started to pity him, before she collapsed under the weight of her conviction and crawled back into Samuel's lap.

She got to her feet, and pried her fingers off the armrest, turned around, and sighed.

Told herself not to look back.

Looked back.

Rushed out.

The professor was out of tears. Now they were all Martha's.


	2. Chapter 1: Mer

**MER**

By the time Martha reached Viridian City, her neck felt stiff as a board. Telling herself to not look back was one thing; actually listening to herself was another matter entirely. It had taken a massive effort to not turn her head just a little bit, because a little bit was always the start of a larger bit, and eventually, she'd have to bite...

And all the way, that same ditty running through her head:

 _–_ _why did you do it, why did you leave, you stupid stupid bint, you haven't been out of Pallet in eighteen years, you left the house open, you didn't even pack properly, you are stupid, stupid, stupid stupid stupid –_

All this time, telling ten-year-olds to bring clean underwear with them, and she hadn't even packed her running shoes.

Across the street now – a Pokémon centre. The bright, scarlet front lighting up the viridian night. She kept her gaze straight ahead, crossed the road, walked up to the building, sagged to the ground like a sack of potatoes sprinkled with stupid useless woman –

There, on the concrete-tiled pavement, she crumpled into a heaving ball. She was exhausted, her legs ached, and she knew that it had nothing to do with the distance she had walked.

And her head felt too heavy for her neck to hold, so she rested it against the Pokémon centre's white front, and she breathed deep, and she tried to relax, and she _couldn't_ …

She was in a world she'd never known. She had tried to remember, over the last few months, what her life had been like outside Pallet – but nothing, there was just nothing, and she was alone, and she was stupid, and she –

– she'd done it. She'd left Pallet, finally. She'd made it, and she was… free.

 _you should never have left_ but I did _you fool you don't know what's out there_ but at least I am _you are needed in pallet_ but I –

– had nothing more to say.

She sat up, turned to face the black asphalt of the road, and the spattered streetlights that threw Chiffon at the sidewalks and the odd passerby. It felt foreign, and frightening, but in the circumstances, welcoming – and the sounds, of the cars and lorries that drifted by, and the noise of doors opening and shutting in the distance, and the voices of people talking on the phone, they were just… there.

A man ambled past her, paying her no attention. She pulled her legs in so he wouldn't stumble – then got to her feet. She would have to… stay at the Pokémon centre? That was what everyone travelling through Kanto did, right? Did it cost money? What if they were full? What about food, would she need a Pokémon to stay there, would she would she –

Movement. She turned to the left, looked down, saw a periwinkle shape emerge from the centre and stumble its way onto the road on four legs. It looked like a turtle, with a dirt brown shell and a blue, wilted tail. There was an air of confusion about it, as though it didn't know where it was, only that it would rather be somewhere else…

It didn't seem to be paying much attention to anything, and certainly not to Martha, who felt drawn to the unfamiliar creature, felt her eyes follow it as though her gaze was glued to its bobbing head, and she was tempted to trail it, just to see where it was headed – heard words in her head urging her to _go on, go on_ , heard – engine nois-

She shouted, or thought she did, and the tortoise heard it or didn't hear it, and the car came rushing and hit it with a _thud_ and kept going, like the driver hadn't just ran something over, and she only barely remembered to look to both sides before darting across the street, to where the turtle was lying on its back, damaged, in pain – dead?

The shell stirred. Martha threw herself forward, grabbed the turtle with both hands, lifted it up…

It stared at her.

She stared back.

It blinked.

She swallowed. "… Um…"

It stared some more.

Then, it winced in pain, and Martha almost dropped it as she hurried to shift her grip. A darker spot was spreading over the right-hand side of its shell, where the car had struck. She stroked it, just a little bit, with her thumb –

"Skwer," groaned the turtle, and she pulled her hand back.

"I… I, had better, get you inside," she said, and straightened up.

The Pokémon centre, that was the hospital, Martha knew that much. She would just hand the tortoise over, tell them it was a traffic accident, ask them for a room for the night, it was that simple.

It was just that simple.

 _Just that simple…_

She didn't notice that someone was walking up to her until they had already walked into her. A dark shape under the yellow lamps, who didn't even stop to apologise, just kept going straight ahead, like he hadn't even seen her. "Hey!" she shouted, but the man didn't listen, didn't stop. She sighed, looked down at the Pokémon in her arms again, crossed the street.

It didn't struggle. Martha was grateful for that. It stayed still in her arms on the pavement, through the doors, over the floor, to the front desk. But when she rang the bell on the counter, it winced. She stroked its head. It was calm.

She threw a glance at the clock on the back wall. 00:30 AM, it read. Half naught. Would there still be people here? Hospitals never stopped working, did they? What if someone got taken ill at a quarter to one?

They couldn't be closed. Not now. She struck the bell again, stroked the turtle. It was quiet, it was calm. No reaction. Nothing.

 _Now you've done it. You have no idea what to do. You're lost, and that_ thing _is going to die, and you will just go crawling back to Oak in Pallet, you should never have left –_

But then another voice said _Look right!_ and she listened.

The words _'Did you come in late?'_ met her in underlined, black letters. Underneath, the poster read _'Service hours 8:30 to 23:00'_ , and below that, there was a map.

Keys on the wall behind the desk, bedclothes behind the reception booth, bedrooms upstairs. Toilets in the hallway, washing room below the stairwell. It was a free self-serve hostel, with – no mention of medical facilities.

She looked down at the turtle again, stroking a finger across its chin. "How are you doing," she said.

"Skwer?"

"I'll take you to my room," she said, "and, and you'll rest. Tomorrow, I'm getting you looked at." It felt like an intrusion, but she saw no other option. Nobody was in, nobody could help. "Okay?"

Her finger suddenly nudged something pointy, cold. She started, looked closer, found a chain –

– and a square, silver tag, with writing on it.

It said…

"… Mer." It had a name. It had an owner. It belonged to someone.

Someone who wasn't Martha.

"… And… we'll find your trainer, too." The word left a sterile, metallic taste in her mouth, like she had eaten the nametag.

She looked down again, and frowned.

"Tomorrow."

 _Tomorrow._


	3. Chapter 2: Morning

**MORNING**

It might have been morning. She might have been awake for an hour. Summer may have crossed into autumn. The only thing Martha knew for certain, was that the room was almost completely dark, barring the light that escaped from the hallway. It relieffed the door, a yellow-edged shape with illegible writing on it, a shape that by now stayed in her vision whenever she closed her eyes. She had counted the number of words. Fifty-five of them, too small to discern in the murk, but fifty-five of them, black words on white paper.

She had counted the number of people who had walked past, outside. There had been eleven of them. Two had talked to each other, the rest had passed by one and one, in silence. Every time, she had tried to count their steps, from the first she heard to the last. She had a tally in her head. The first had taken sixty-eight, heavily, the echoes deep and solid. Louder in the stairs; they all were, and the echoes had gone on for longer, stretching the steps into cones of sound that stretched on until eventually, they dissolved. He may have taken more steps, or less. She had heard sixty-eight.

Most of them had taken sixty-something steps. She thought they must all be kids, or the number would have varied more. The two that had talked to each other were definitely kids. Two boys, both below puberty. She didn't know the gender of any of the others. She imagined they were mostly boys. Most of the kids she had sent off to Samuel had been boys.

The tenth person who had passed by had taken slow, methodic steps. His steps had clacked on the linoleum floor, as though his shoes were soled with wood. Martha thought he must have very long legs, because she only counted forty-five steps for him. His steps were deliberate, as though he was walking on a timer. The steps had clicked along with the clock on Martha's wall, going _click, clock, click, clack, tick, tock, tick, tack_ , and she had mouthed the seconds that she imagined to pass with him, going _one, two, three, four, five, six, sev'n, eight_ until he was gone, and with him, time itself. The clock kept ticking, but more dully then.

Martha had tried to remember the words on the door. She had read them several times before turning off the lights, in case they could come in useful. _In case of fire_ , she remembered those four words. They could come in useful, in case of fire. _If the fire alarm goes off,_ everyone must evacuate their rooms. Something about possessions, which she hadn't paid much attention to, because leaving your possessions behind during a fire was the sensible thing to do. The rest was hazy, but she remembered the names. _Corner of Gio Road and Scoonesbury Avenue_. Martha had thought about those names. She thought that maybe that was where the Pokémon centre was located. Maybe that was where the fire station was. Martha didn't know. There hadn't been a fire, so she didn't need to know.

There were no windows. That would probably have caused a problem in case of fire, Martha thought. There were no windows, and the light switch was on the wall next to the door. She could just make it out through the darkness, because of the rectangle of light leaking through the gaps around the door. She tried to close her eyes. The bright outline of the door still showed up on her eyelids. The light switch did not. Only the yellow outline, which blurred and moved, first to the left, then to the right.

When Martha opened her eyes again, the room was no brighter. She could only just make out her feet through the bed covers, dark grey set against darker grey still. She traced the line of her legs with her gaze, until she hit her side, and…

… and Mer. The Pokémon she'd carried in from the streets yesterday. It lay next to her, still asleep, its breath steady but irregular, far out of time with the clock. If not for Mer, she might have got out of bed a long time ago.

Later, when Mer was awake, Martha would have to take it downstairs, and hand it over to the Pokémon centre so they could find its proper owner.

Whenever she thought about that, she found herself wanting to think about something else.

Maybe the owner would be waiting downstairs, worrying themself sick.

 _Maybe he's violent, and Mer doesn't want to go back –_

The tortoise made a noise, then stirred. Martha stiffened, and shut her lips.

"… Swker?" mumbled Mer eventually.

She didn't reply.

Mer went silent; Martha couldn't feel it move. The room went back to dull, dummied dusk, pressuring down on her –

 _–_ _lay still, lay still, be quiet,_ the bed creaked as her arm twitched, she breathed, the whole world was clamour and then Mer spoke again.

"Skwer!" it said, and rubbed its arm against her side. She sighed.

"Good morning," she said.

She couldn't remember having said that to someone before. She couldn't remember ever being able to. Nor could she remember anyone else saying it to her, either. They were perfectly normal, simple words, and on the television they said them all the time. 'Good morning' was just perfectly normal, stimulating, human conversation.

"Skwer," said Mer, and Martha briefly hated it for not speaking human.

She got up, felt her way towards the door, and flicked the light on. The room blinked in and out of view for a few seconds, then settled into a doleful yellow. It was just as sparse now as it had been the night before – a wooden dresser, a messy bed, a clock on the wall, and dust underfoot. A green lamp hanging from the ceiling, which wasn't as far up as she was used to. A square mirror on the wall, at head height.

When she went to bed, it hadn't occurred to her to be especially modest. After all, Mer wasn't human, and only humans cared about being seen in their underwear. She went to fetch her clothes from the dresser, pulled them on, made the necessary adjustments. The turtle in the bed remained silent.

And then, finally, she – hesitated.

"Come," she muttered, turning around to pick Mer up. "We'd better – get you looked at. And then you can go." The clock showed twenty minutes to nine. It was time.

They went downstairs. There were a few people around already, waiting in chairs, standing in line in front of the reception desk. When Martha let go of the bannister, the receptionist called out "Next!"

The queue was only three persons long. She became the fourth. Somehow, the foyer felt warmer than the bedrooms upstairs, even though it was a lot bigger. She glanced around – a young woman was sitting by a table near the exit, reading a magazine over her folded legs. On the other side of the door sat an elderly woman, with a cane in her hand and a pensive expression on her face. She didn't seem to notice Martha. A short while later, the old lady got up and walked out of the building.

Soon the line was just Martha, and the boy in front, who was getting some Poké Balls back from the nurse on duty. He said "Thanks", turned around, nearly ran into Martha in his hurry to get out, and then the nurse –

– glanced up –

– and _past_ and then called out to the girl near the door: "Hey, you back there need anything?"

"No thanks, just waitin' for someone!"

"Good to know, thanks…"

… and that was _it_. The receptionist hadn't even _looked_ at Martha. She just went back to watching the computer screen in front of her.

Martha walked a bit closer.

Nothing.

Martha cleared her throat.

Still nothing.

She hit the bell on the counter.

The nurse looked up, blinking. "… Yes?"

"Hi, uh, I found this Pokémon y-"

"Who's playing silly buggers?" said the nurse suddenly, getting up – she grabbed the counter, leaned over the edge and peered down at Martha's shoes, before peering suspiciously over Martha's shoulder. "Was that you?"

"Excuse me –" started Martha, but she got interrupted by the girl at the back, who went "Me what?"

"… Probably nothing," said the nurse. "I thought someone rang the bell..."

" _I_ did!" To demonstrate, Martha hit the bell one more time, but the nurse jumped sideways with a scream.

"Lord in _heaven_!" she shouted, eyes on Martha's hand. "It just – what's going on?"

"I'm going on!" said Martha. "Look, I have this Pokémon here…"

But the nurse simply grabbed her own head, and went, "Maybe I didn't get enough sleep last night…"

" _Look at me_!" Martha yelled, and she could feel her voice break apart into atoms, and this had _got_ to be a joke, someone would be hiding behind those doors at the back, or behind a potted plant, and they'd all jump out and shout "Surprise!" but nobody did, nobody did, it was just the nurse staring at Martha's ear and nothing happened, nothing nothing _nothing_ …

"Please…" she said. "Please look at me?"

But she didn't.

Martha walked to the back of the room, up to the girl with the magazine, stopped in front of her – and ripped the magazine straight out of her hands, threw it onto the floor, put her foot on top of the glossy front page, glared a challenge to the girl, a challenge to _notice me or I won't let go –_

But she didn't. The girl just flew out of the chair, shouted "The hell's goin' on?" and _ran_ and Martha stood there, feeling like the air she was breathing, feeling like the noise in the room –

She pulled her foot back, ripping the cover apart. "If this – if this, if this is a joke," she said, but nobody jumped out, nobody shouted "Surprise!" and nobody, nobody produced an explanation so she _ran_ and the city was cold in the morning light and she _ran_ and the pavement echoed her every footstep back at her and she _ran_ clutching Mer to her chest, Mer the only one that had paid any notice to her, Mer that got hit by a car yesterd-

– she should run into the road, she _must_ run into the road, because the drivers would notice her, the drivers _must_ notice her, and then they'd bring out the camera and everything will be all right –

– and she felt the lorry hit her before she entered the road, and she fell backwards, and they hadn't noticed her, which meant she didn't exist, which meant it didn't matter what happened, and she found it curious how human the lorry had felt as they collided –

– and she landed hard on the sidewalk. She hadn't been run over by a car, she'd crashed into – her eyes and head took some time to readjust to the upright figure in front of her – the old woman from the Pokémon centre.

"Sorry," she muttered, and got to her feet –

"No, no, that was my faul- wait a minnit," said the woman. "How come you can see me?"

 _She spoke to you. She_ spoke _to_ you _..._ "You can see me?"

"Of course I can, do you think I'd have this job if I couldn't?"

"But… But…" But she didn't say anything else, because the old lady had frozen, fastened her eyes on the ground next to Martha, at – at Mer.

"Wait up, lady," said the unknown woman. "This Squirtle right here" _– Squirtle? –_ "you wouldn't have happened upon it by chance yesterday, would you?"

"I, um, yes?"

"Ah! Things are coming together. And you? You are…"

Martha wavered. _Is this a joke they're waiting around that corner there aren't they or hiding in that bush_ "I'm… Martha?"

And the old lady just… put a hand to her mouth, and went "Oh…"

"… Oh?"

"Yes, 'oh'. You're damn right it's 'oh' – Martha, from Pallet? Oak's girl?"

'Oak'. She recoiled a little bit at the name, and a lot at the woman's characteristic of her. All this time, in Pallet, and she was somehow just a – a _girl_ …

Nonetheless, she replied "Yes."

"Whoa. I'd… never expected that, to be honest. Still, it's good I caught you so soon, or who knows what might have happened…"

 _…_ _who knows, you may have been killed in traffic, or just flat out stopped existing altogether…_

"… you'd best come with me. Pick up the Squirtle, please, and take it with you."

The old woman walked over to a drainpipe lid, slotted her cane in the small gap, and levered it open. "Come, come come," she said.

"Come _where_?" said Martha, lifting Mer up off the ground and cradling it.

"To the Blood King," came the reply – the woman had already started to climb.

"To the… Blood King? Look, why should I trust you? I don't even know your name!" cried Martha.

"The name's Agatha," said – well, Agatha. She sighed, and looked Martha straight in the eyes – with a gaze that was far more ancient than the body it came from, a gaze so grey it felt like the essence of mountains. "And the reason you should trust me," she went on, "is that as of right now, nobody up here even knows you exist."


	4. Chapter 3: Moats

**MOATS**

"Hm?"

They were in the sewers. They were actually in the sewers, below Viridian itself, on a brick precipice over brown and filthy waters. Vaults and keystone arches sprawled out like torments on every side, and most of the floor was soaked in slop. Only a couple of walkways rose above the streams, covered in damp moss. It smelled like Martha's worst cleaner's nightmare.

The old woman – _Agatha, that was her name_ – stood a few yards ahead of Martha, half-turned her way. "You were saying?" she asked.

"I, uh, I'd like you to repeat that, please." Martha tried to stand up a little straighter. "Please," she repeated.

"Right now, the world up there" – Agatha pointed towards the surface overhead with her torch – "don't know you exist. That's the gist of it, anyway."

"But –"

"Lady. I'm sure you have lots of questions, but this definitely isn't the best place for a conversation."

– then why bring me here –

 _–_ _then why follow –_

– because I have nobody else to –

"– me, and I'll take you to the Blood King. You'll get your answers there, and then… We'll see." The woman sighed, and set off ahead. "It's a bit of a walk, sorry about the stink."

And Martha –

– followed.

Mer was completely quiet in her arms. It didn't move, not even with breath, did turtles even do that or was the shell too hard? She rubbed against its side with her thumb, it was stiff and coarse, like a loofah, dry against Martha's blouse but felt like it ought to be wet, like a peeled carrot. 'Squirtle', Agatha had said. _Squirtle. Squirt. Water, wet. Water?_

"So… Why'd you leave Pallet?"

Martha hadn't realised that she had been walking. Now she saw the filth floating by only a couple of feet to the right; she recoiled.

Agatha had stopped right before a junction, was looking back at Martha. "I mean, that's a pretty steady gig, isn't it?"

"I, I suppose so?"

"So why'd you leave?"

"Because –"

 _–_ _Oak's crinkled face, the piles of books on his workdesk, the weak table lamp that left the corners of his office in a dusty darkness, the sound of paper slowly sliding, sliding; Oak's shocked face, the confession she made while half out of breath, the flicker of the bulb as she grabbed the desktop, the noise of nineteen years of loaded springs coming unloaded; Oak's broken face, the final plea, the light growing darker, the silence that followed, Oak's face –_

"– because I don't..." She swallowed, tried to force the images down with the spit, tried to push them out of her head, _why, Martha, why,_ push them out, _Martha, why_ –

"… I don't want a steady gig," she managed. "Not any more."

Agatha nodded. "Well, I can tell you you got what you wanted," she said, and glanced off to the side. "I think it's pretty darn safe to say you got the opposite of what you didn't want."

The opposite of what she didn't want…

"… Agatha?" She was surprised to hear her own voice, swallowed again but decided to press on.

"Yes?"

"You said, people don't know I exist."

"Correct."

"What, uh, what do you mean?"

Agatha sighed again, glanced down at Mer. "It's a thing that happens when you leave a steady gig," she said. "I won't explain it all here. But it's on that Squirtle, too."

That Squirtle – Mer. Outside the Pokémon centre, across the road. In her arms now, even though it was hit by – a car…

The shell was in Martha's arms but it was still still, silent and dry, and the doctors had never looked at Mer, and she didn't dare to look down in case she saw a wilted blue husk, she stared at Agatha instead, asked –

"Am I dead?"

The truck, she really _had_ been hit by a truck, she hadn't just collided with Agatha but with traffic and now her body was by the roadside, being loaded into an ambulance to be taken to a morgue and –

"No. You're not."

– she wasn't.

"If anything, I'd say you're more alive now than before." The words were happy, but the face was not, and the voice was calm, far too calm to be delivering good news. "But… You may come to regret that."

"Why?"

But Agatha didn't reply. She reached out an arm instead, and touched the disgusting green-brown wall, like she hadn't even heard _she's ignoring you_ she's ignoring me _she's hiding something from you_ she's hiding something _dirty old bat_ please don't let her have heard that

"Why?" Martha asked, more pointedly this time. "Why will I regret that?"

"No time for questions now," said Agatha, running her hands up and down the wall. "Wait 'til we get there…"

And Martha said – nothing. She opened her mouth, but no words came out at all – this time, the "Why?" died in her throat. She looked down at Mer. The Squirtle was quiet, as quiet as the words Martha was unable to speak aloud, but it peered back at her, anxious, but still didn't move, and she tried to smile, but didn't.

And then –

"Right, that should do it. Grab my hand, lady – keep your grip tight round that tortoise, too." Martha obeyed before she even registered that Agatha was talking to her, before she even noticed that the wall had parted somehow, a glimmering gap like a tear in trousers; and she clutched Mer tightly with her one arm and reached the other out towards Agatha, and the old woman took it, nodded, said "Don't let go" –

– and stepped into the hole in the wall.


	5. Chapter 4: Majesty

**MAJESTY**

The sewers vanished like crumbs swept off a tabletop. Suddenly the world was _white_ , incredibly white, so white Martha thought it had stopped existing – it wasn't a colour that blinded, but a colour that suggested nothingness, an eraser that erazed and erose to cover everything, everywhere, the white flowed into every sense, she tasted white air and heard white noise and smelled nothing, her skin was numb and number and numbed and _why did you listen to her she's killing you she's taking you into the underworld into –_

– somewhere. The world was _colours_ again and she felt dust and dirt underneath her feet, scraped her soles against the floor to feel that familiar sensation again; heard a quiet breathing from Agatha and another, more harried breathing that she realised was her own; smelled the stuffy air of a small room that must have been closed for years…

"Sorry 'bout the landing spot," mumbled Agatha ahead, letting go of Martha's hand. "It's the only room 'round here people never use, and it's always best to be sure not to land on anyone."

Martha blinked. There was no light in the room but her eyes were somehow used to the darkness straight away, like they were trying to claw back as much sight as possible, like the trip through nowhereland had frightened them into working harder. She saw the silhouette of a locker to the left, the contours of a cleaning rack to the right, both close, only a couple feet or so away. Blackened buckets stood on the floor, mops hanging off the side. A single step had taken her from the sewers into a broom cupboard.

Light poured in as Agatha opened the door, but Martha was looking the other way, looking for a hole, looking for a drainpipe the size of two women and a small turtle, looking for something that could sensibly explain why they were _here_ all of a sudden but no, all she found was a sink with paint on it. She couldn't even get her pinkie through the holes in the bottom.

 _what did you expect_ i don't know something _you don't know anything you stupid bint_ i know that this doesn't make any sense "Yeah, sorry, it doesn't make much sense, does it?"

It took her a while to realise that Agatha had said that. The old woman was standing in the hallway outside, looking somewhat apologetic. "Specially not when you've been in Pallet all your life," she went on. "That's a moat, we call it, there's thousands of them all over Kanto."

Martha could only mutter "… The sink?"

"No, of course not – well, I… That's a good question, actually," said Agatha, scratching herself on the elbow. "It's more like the room itself is a moat, but I don't know exactly what it springs from."

"A… a moat?"

"Oh, right – well, you know castles?" Martha nodded. "Well, castles got moats. They're like ditches with water in them, to stop people coming through you don't want to. But if you can swim, moats are just really wet roads." Agatha chuckled, stretched out a hand. "And you, lady, just learned how to swim. Get on out of there, now, the King's waiting."

Martha handed Agatha her free arm, and then she was being pulled through a rickety corridor, through creaking floorboards and rusty steel nails and blinking fluorescent lamps and towards a door in the distance. There were holes in the walls and through the roof, occasionally a piece of rotting wood hung off some hinges, only partially hiding a dark dusty hole into nowhere.

This didn't look like a castle. It didn't smell like a castle. It didn't _feel_ like a castle. Martha didn't know what a castle felt like but she knew it'd feel different from this. This was just… decay with a broom cupboard in it. And yet, a king lived here.

"A king lives here," she said, but it was a question.

"The Blood King, yup," Agatha said, but it didn't answer.

The Blood King.

The _Blood_ King.

"If… if he's a, a king… Why haven't I heard of him?"

They stopped. Agatha first, and then Martha by almost walking into her. The old woman didn't turn around, but Martha could practically see the expression printed on the back of her neck.

"… You have," came the reply, drawn-out, slow. "You don't know him as the Blood King, but… you most definitely know him."

"Who?"

Agatha bent her neck. Her bun pointed towards the derelict ceiling, her nose towards the likewise floor; she breathed, but didn't say anything.

" _Who_?" repeated Martha, and now she could feel a trace of panic in her voice, just like she could feel the trace in the back of her mind and in the fingers that held Agatha's hand because nobody would ever be silent like this without a very, very _bad_ reason –

But Agatha only mumbled, "You'll see" – and then started walking again.

Martha knew him. She _"most definitely"_ knew him. But she knew no one, she knew nobody at all. Pallet had been her life for as long as she could remember and in Pallet, nobody lived – except her, and the kids, and –

 _–_ _and Samuel._

But… Samuel wasn't a king, was he? He was just a professor with a radio show, he was…

 _…_ _famous across the region regularly on trips out of town always hidden away in his laboratory once the Kanto champion said to be the_ reigning authority on Pokémon –

Was that where Agatha was taking her? Back to Pallet, back to the prison that was her house, back to another nineteen years – no, she couldn't be _yes she could she damn well could be_ but what about Mer Mer doesn't belong to Samuel _who cares about that thing tug your arm away_ tug my arm away _run back to where you came from don't look back_ but…

… they'd just find her again, force her to return. This way, she could face Samuel with dignity.

As much dignity as she could muster after trekking through a sewer in low heels, at least.

And yet…

She looked down at Mer. It stared back, wide-eyed. This little creature had been run over by a car and since then, it had stayed with her, calm and unflinching. All this time waiting for her to give it medical attention.

She couldn't just give up on it now. She must get it to a doctor somewhere, and then… then, she'd have to figure out some other excuse to stay out of Pallet.

Somehow, they were at the end of the corridor. A big wooden door stood in their way. There was a painting of a crown on it, peeling along with the ancient oak it was smeared on, faded from a probable gold to a barely visible lemon. And yet, the door felt – _big_. If Martha reached her hand up, she could probably touch the top jamb, but still her mind insisted that it was much larger, that the walls on the sides were much farther than they seemed.

"Through here," said Agatha, and Martha almost pulled her hand away. "The Blood King's court. Remember to bow your head when he speaks" _bow my head to Samuel? never_ "and also, it's a pretty good idea to address him with 'sire' or 'my liege'" _I'll bloody well call him Samuel like I always have_ "and, oh. He remembers you, but you might not remember him" and that – might not remember Samuel? Why wouldn't she –

– but Agatha was already pushing the door open, and it didn't creak but it _shrieked_ and _screamed_ and beyond was a pale murk flecked with blacker shades, and a single candle in the middle that flickered and spat and threw a crimson glow on a blotchy carpet, and the floor crawled slowly towards the back wall, and so did Martha because Agatha was pulling her arm, leading her deeper into the darkness. A shadow moved to the left, then another to the right, moved with Martha, almost like they were _her_ shadows.

This was not Samuel's court. This was someone else's. And that someone was sitting almost right in front of her now, only yards ahead.

Agatha got down on one knee, and said: "Sire, the Squirtle is here. And so's… Martha. Martha from Pallet Town."

"Really?" came a voice, and Martha could see where it was coming from, but only in outlines. A half-circle rising from the floor, behind a chair that looked like it had wings, and in the chair – a reclining figure.

"Aggie," the voice went on, "you _must_ be joking. You simply must."

"I'm not, sire," replied Agatha.

The figure moved. It seemed to be getting to its feet – she saw lines like legs touch the floor, saw a ball like a head rise up, up, up…

It came closer, towering at least two heads above Martha, and she saw that it was bare-chested, with a torn-off shirt poking out of its trousers, and she saw that it was skin and bone but very little else –

And then it turned on a flashlight, turned it up to its own face.

That face was a face she had first seen in Pallet, more than nineteen years ago. She remembered the eyes, she remembered the nose, she remembered the chin and cheeks that were by now hidden behind layers of black stubble and brown dirt, remembered everything from when it was far, far younger. The Blood King's name… was Red.

"Hello, Mother," he said.


	6. Chapter 5: Memory

**MEMORY**

"How are you, Mother?" and the voice was immaterial, it was nothing. The dirty, stubbled face, more shadowed than brightened by the searchlight; the sallow lines, the bony cheeks that stood out like an animal trying to escape from a tarpaulin; the sunken grey eyes and the clearly broken nose; it was a spectre and a fake. And the body it was attached to, with skin stretched like old rubber over pointy ribs and elbows, and the bony hands with fingers that looked like a skeleton's fingers but with nails – it was all a mockery, a mockery of a memory.

Martha remembered the man that was standing scarecrow above her, but she remembered him as a ten-year-old boy, nineteen years ago, leaving Pallet Town for the first time. He was her first charge, the first of thousands, tens of thousands, before they all melted into a baby blur. She had forgotten many of them. But never the first. Never Red.

And now here he was, right in front of her. Many years aged, stained by a careless life, starved into a scaffolding. Pale as though he had used the blood from his own veins to form his new title. Even the mucky yellow light from the torch failed to yield any colour to his complexion, and it _couldn't_ be Red. But it was.

"Mister Brazier," he said, without breaking eye contact, "we are in _most_ dire need of your services."

There was a noise from the darkness behind Red, something that sounded like a "Yes". He switched off the flashlight, and suddenly the noise could have come from anywhere. The shadow that was Red drifted backwards; another shadow detached itself from the blackness of the winged chair. Martha recoiled, but Agatha reached out and grabbed her by the arm and _the services are murder murder_ but the shadow went past, and she caught a brief glimpse of a bald head in the sparse light –

– and then the light was no longer sparse, but a whoosh of hot oily cinnabar. A wind flitted past and then a pitch drum flared up on the other side of Martha. The room was blinking brass, and she could see – a room almost exactly like the hallway outside, but much wider, slightly taller. The construction was still decayed, but possibly a little less so. And on the floor… a long, red carpet, leading up to Red.

There he was, sitting half sideways on a rickety throne, resting a cheek on his fist, his eyes on her.

"Mother, I asked you a question," he said.

And it was a question Martha didn't know how to answer. How had she been – it was a polite question, the kind of question people asked when they didn't want you to think about the answer. They wanted you to read "Fine" off a card, and then forget about it. Nobody wanted to hear an explanation of why "Fine" was not the right answer. Red wouldn't want to hear it, not judging from the expression on his face. But she wanted to say it. She wanted to dump it all on him – because he was the first, he was a physical representation of everything she had wanted to run away from.

– but it's not his fault _who cares he deserves it_ he just happened to be there _and now he just happens to be here, how convenient_ he doesn't deserve it _yes he does he_ dared _to ask how i've been dump it dump it all –_

"I, I've been fine," she said.

But Red was no longer looking at her. Instead, he was addressing Agatha. "Aggie, dearest, I'm sure this must be a prank. She can _hear_ me."

Agatha bowed her head. "I know, sire."

"That means this woman must have… _departed_."

"You are correct, sire."

" _Mother_ ," and now he almost spat the word, "would never have dared to depart."

Agatha still kept her head bowed. "And yet, I believe she has, sire," she said.

"But this can _not_ be her, Aggie. Mother was a mere witless pawn of the, the establyment." confusion _confusion_ doesn't he recognise me _the ungrateful bastard_ "She will rot in that house in Pallet forever. This simply _must_ be somebody else." _how dare he how_ dare _he –_

And Agatha just stood there, didn't say a word in Martha's defence, _cowardly old bag_ –

Martha opened her mouth, wanted to say something, wanted to put Red in his place; but before she got a sound out, the King was already looking at her. "You, woman lady," he said, and she almost stepped back. "You have been telling Aggie silly stories. You cannot be Mother, even though you look like her, because Mother is an utter poltroon. What is your real name?"

She bit down the contradiction. The feeling in her stomach was that he wouldn't listen; and after all, she was no longer Martha of Pallet Town. She was Martha of herself. She had _wanted_ to start anew.

But she still replied "My name is, is. It's Martha."

Red looked her up and down, as though inspecting her. Nothing else on him moved, except the shadows from the firelight.

Eventually, he said: "I see. So you have the same name as Mother. I suppose we must all have our doubles." He gestured with his free hand, as though waving off a fly. "It is all _most_ irrelevant. I will have Brainie run a check later. As for now… the Squirtle, if you please."

The Squirtle. Mer. Martha looked down; it was right there, in her arms, and had been there for so long she almost didn't notice its weight any longer. It was never a big weight to begin with.

And Red – wanted it? Was it his? Did it just fall to him, because he was a king? She looked the Squirtle in the eyes; it blinked, looked back like it didn't understand. Then it opened its mouth for the first time since the Pokémon centre.

"Skwer," it said.

"Martha, if you do not hand me the Squirtle afterfast, I shall be _most_ cross."

Suddenly, Agatha's hands were around the turtle's shell. "I'll take it," she mumbled. "He's… none too pleasant when he's mad."

And Martha let go. She wouldn't have let go if it was Red's hands around the Squirtle, but with Agatha she did. Dumbly she watched as the old woman took slow, deliberate steps towards the throne, holding Mer in front of her; like it were covered in paint, like it were smelly or repulsive. When she reached Red, she went down on one knee. At no point had she even looked up from her feet.

The next _minutes_ _hours days_ passed in silence. With only the slight noise of the fires behind Martha ensuring her that she could still hear, she watched Red taking Mer into his lap, tapping its shell with an index finger, turning it back and forth and up and down and tugging at its tail, and he took meticulous care with every action, and Agatha stayed hunched on the floor, and the inspection went on, and on, and then Red made a blessed sound.

"Low quality," he said, matter-of-factly. "No wonder the owner let _this_ one go, it is scarcely worth looking at."

Then he handed the Squirtle back to Agatha, while Martha simply stared. "I have no use for this. Pawn it to somebody, won't you, Aggie?"

The old woman nodded, accepted Mer. "It will be done, sire."

"In fact, I believe – you, woman lady," said Red, waggling a finger at Martha. "I will not call you Martha, you are _certainly_ not a Martha. From hence on forth, your name shall be Muddy. Muddy – you simply _must_ take this Squirtle. It is my gift to you for not being Mother."

 _Muddy_. She glanced down at her legs, wondered if the sewers had stayed on her shoes or pantyhose. _He called me Muddy._ There he sat, looking like he'd soiled himself in a swamp, and he had the gall to call her that. _Muddy._

But he had also offered her Mer. So she nodded, didn't say a word, just nodded her head. She could take Muddy, at least for a while, at least until she left the room, whenever that would –

"Good," said Red. "Now be gone. Aggie, take her back, please."

– be.

And that was it. He was no longer paying attention to anyone; he lay with his eyes closed, sprawled over his chair as though he was just a skin bag of bones.

And Martha wanted to speak up, because she did _not_ want to go back, and she did _not_ want to be called Muddy, and she did _not_ want to be ordered around; she wanted to walk up to him, put her finger right under his nose, tell him in her most indignant mother voice, "You listen to me, you ungrateful little punk" but…

There was something about him. Something about the way he sat alone in a chair in some decrepit old building, about the way he gave orders, the way Agatha simply deferred to his commands and called him 'sire'. Something about the fact that, despite everything, he still held enough weight to make people refer to him as the 'Blood King'. Much as she wanted to, she could not force her legs to move, or her lips to part.

And when Agatha walked up, handed over the Squirtle, put her hand on Martha's shoulder and gently pushed – then, Martha felt herself shrink from a toppling tower into a steady treestump. She let herself be guided out of the Blood King's anaemic court, and into the hallway beyond; she glued her own tongue in spit to stop it moving, until the doors behind her closed.

Only then did she allow herself to say, "Brat."

"I know, I know," replied Agatha. "He's a little bit entitled…"

"A, and, you're enabling him!"

"We do what we have to." Now the woman frowned a bit. "He's not a bad sort, he's just… Well. Insert your own adjective, I s'pose."

Martha took a deep breath. "You said… You said there'd be answers."

"Quite right. But I never said the King would be giving them, did I?" And in just four sentences, Agatha had gone from a frown to a wink. "That was just a, whatchammacallit, proprietary visit. He wanted to see the Squirtle, y'see, and he'd already waited longer than usual."

"… And…"

"And now, we go find the answers. This is a castle, remember? After all, if you want information, you don't go to the king, you go to his advisors."

Martha tried to repeat all those words in her head to make them make sense. "You, you do?"

"Yes. By the way…" Agatha handed over Mer. "I believe this is yours now."

Martha quietly accepted. _Hers._ Now two people had said it; Mer was _her_ Pokémon. And she was – she was its trainer. Even though the Blood King had asked Agatha to retrieve it. Even though…

"… Uh, what – what about its owner?" she said, not looking up from the turtle.

"Lady. I just told you it's yours."

"But Re- the King said… the owner let, let him go." She hadn't bothered to process those words until now, but he had said them. This Pokémon had an owner from before. An owner who had named it Mer.

"… Ah." The tone of Agatha's voice made Martha look up. "Well. That's a bit of a story. Come with me, we'll have to sit down for this one."

She turned around before the sentence was even finished. That, too, was worrying.


	7. Chapter 6: Miss Rigby

**MISS RIGBY**

It was an old table. Martha had never seen one like it before; it looked like someone had carved the shape out of one massive tree trunk. She felt her way across the edge in front of her, in case there were splinters.

Agatha was holding Mer now. They were opposite Martha, both watching her. Martha kept looking at the tabletop.

"There's a lot of stuff you miss out on in Pallet, isn't there?" said Agatha. It was both a question and a statement. Martha didn't reply.

"Y'see, trainers do lots of things once they get out of there." Again, Martha didn't reply. She knew they did.

"But they all catch Pokémon. And just like us, some Pokémon are healthy, and some aren't. And some trainers have a heart, and some… don't."

Her tone had changed slightly. It didn't sound angry, or disgusted. Rather, it sounded… empty. Like the air around Agatha had suddenly turned into a sponge. Martha shrank back slightly in her chair.

"And some trainers… release their Pokémon. I mean, it happens. It's usually the frail and unhealthy ones, the ones that won't make it in battle. Like, hm, your Squirtle" – she picked it up, glanced at the name tag, held the Pokémon up into the air with both hands – "Mer. It's pretty sickly. Pale – can you see?"

"See… what?" said Martha. She peered at the – the creature that she now knew to be called Squirtle. It was the only Squirtle she had ever seen. "What – what's wrong?"

"Hm… No, you wouldn't know, would you. But, well. Lemme put it this way, don't expect a Blastoise from it." She put Mer down on the table, rubbed its head softly.

"A… what?"

Agatha waved her hand without looking up. "Not important," she said. "Suffice to say, it's something most people expect their Squirtles to become."

And there it was again, that hollow tone. It had waned for a bit, but now it was back. Agatha was looking at Mer, looking bothered, looking _hungry, looking hungry hungry greedy_

"D'you know what a trainer sees when they release their Pokémon?"

The question caught Martha off guard. It took her several seconds to realise that her own mouth was hanging open, like her body had decided to reply but her voice hadn't followed suit. "Um…" she said, and regretted it.

"They see nothing," Agatha said. "They don't see a sodding thing. To them, the Pokémon just… disappears. Like it didn't even exist in the first place." She stopped, drew a deep breath. Twiddled her thumbs, looked Martha straight in the eyes.

And then she said, "They don't disappear."

The woman's gaze delved deep into Martha, who suddenly became aware of how little control she had over her own expression. How little she knew about what she herself looked like. She could be glaring disgustedly at Agatha, or seem completely carefree. Agatha sat there, like a mirror. Martha tried to copy her, matched the eyebrows, adjusted the mouth. Swallowed. Waited.

"They're still there. Maybe they'll try to get their former trainer's attention, but it won't work, because that former trainer doesn't see them, hear them, smell them. It's like being a ghost. Except not really, because the Pokémon is still alive. But the people up there," she pointed half-heartedly with a thumb, almost like she didn't want to acknowledge who she was talking about, "they don't know that."

"Oh," said Martha. Not seen, and not heard. And yet, she had seen Mer.

… But nobody had seen _her_.

So it was Oak, after all. Somehow, he had _released_ her. He had been her owner – that was why Agatha had called her 'Oak's girl'. And that was why she had been stuck in Pallet for an eternity, an eternity of nineteen years.

"I'm released," she said. And now, nobody could see her, except Agatha. Nobody would see her if she went above ground. Nobody would hear her scream if she got run over. Nobody would come to dig her a grave, or put her body away. She would rot away as the wheels rolled over her, become one with the asphalt and rubber, a red and dirty smear that wouldn't be red, because nobody would be there to see it. She would die, but it wouldn't be a death, because nobody would ever know of it.

"In a way," said Agatha. But then she added, "Except you released yourself."

"… What?"

"You released yourself. It's called – well. _We_ call it 'departing'. You _departed_ from your position in Pallet, and… that does things to you. I'm not sure why. But it's the same idea. People up there can't see or hear you anymore."

"But, but –" and Martha couldn't phrase the question she wanted to ask, because it wasn't just one question but every question in the world, questions filled with words she couldn't pronounce or hadn't even heard about, and she would run out of breath before even mouthing the first 'What' –

– and she thought about death on the road, thought about the ribs poking out from the invisible Martha pulp, thought about the cars driving by, and then one day, a car would run over the jagged remains of her ribcage and shatter it completely, but not before the edges puncture the car's tyres, and it's her body's last cry of "I'm still here" before it's no longer true, and there is nothing left for Father McKenzie to bury…

She was nothing. She was a breeze pushing against a tall building, a glance through a stained-glass window. She had left Pallet with no idea of what would come, and now she realised that nothing did. Nothing came because nothing happened to nothing. _You brought this on yourself_ , she knew it was true, _you wanted to_ do _something with your life but you're hopeless useless homeless_

Agatha didn't say anything. She just smiled weakly, like she didn't know what was going through Martha's head, like this whole thing wasn't a big deal, like it would pass –

 _–_ _would it?_

"Can I… can it be fixed?"

Agatha's smile didn't change. "Not that I know of. Probably not. But it's not such a bad life. Lots of good people down here – and, hey, you got this little critter here." She pushed Mer across the table, and Martha had her hand on it the moment it crossed the halfway point.

"I gotta go fetch someone, but I'll be right back," said Agatha. "You two just make yourselves comfortable while I'm gone, okay?"

The turtle was like a cold bath to the touch, but she grabbed it, clutched it to her chest. It didn't make a noise, didn't protest, didn't struggle. Just like her, it might as well lie dead in Viridian. But it didn't, and neither did she. And now, it was hers. It was hers, because it was nobody's.

"Mer," she mumbled.

"Skwer," it said.

And then… there was silence. It was like any other silence, but in it, Martha started to notice the room. It seemed bigger with Agatha gone, darker without voices to brighten it. The table waxed under her elbows, the floor vanished below her feet, the ceiling shot away as though she had reached out for it. She remembered it as a stone-clad kitchen, but as shadows poured from the corners it seemed more and more like a hell; the walls parting to let in darkness from an unknown beyond, brightness fading away like the light was in on it, the wood beams splitting open and spilling their murky gloopy blood –

– and then there was a creaking noise, and the room settled, and Agatha came in with two companions: Hope and an unfamiliar gentleman in a cape.

"Martha," she said, "this is the Marquis the Dragaras."

The man bowed, with one hand pressed to his chest. His carmine hair, which was greasy and shoulder-length, crawled in front of his face as he did so; however, it didn't hide his expression, which was stony and arrogant.

"Charmed," – he said the word, but he didn't say the tone.

"Um, hi," said Martha.

"You are Martha, of Pallet Town?" The man still addressed her, but his eyes travelled between her and Mer, as though he was perusing a book.

"I, I am," she said, pulling the Squirtle closer.

"And I see you've found a Pokémon that matches you to a T," he went on. "Really, Agatha, are you sure?"

"Well, she can't just walk around by herself, can she? We gotta find something for her."

"Ah, but that makes it all so very easy. Let's promote her to Queen."

"Come _on_ , Lonnie. Take this seriously, won't you?"

"You're quite right. I won't."

And then Agatha slapped him on the cheek. "You will, or I swear there'll be hell to pay for you."

The man gave Agatha a bow so stiff that Martha half expected him to fracture at the hip. "Thy will be done, O magnificent one," he said, poison dripping from every syllable.

And then his attention was on Martha again. He drifted closer, grabbed her hand – and her helpless glance to Agatha was answered with hand gestures and a mouthed "Don't worry" – and then he was at her face, pulling her eyelids apart and staring into her irises, and Martha fought the urge to stretch out her free hand and do what Agatha had just done, to give him a solid clapping across the chin –

"Really, Agatha, this is highly irregular," he burst out suddenly, letting go and taking a step back. "There's no point. She'll never make it."

"You said that about him, too."

"Yes, and I've learned from that mistake. This one definitely won't make it."

They were talking about her. They were talking about her, like she wasn't even there. They were talking about her like she was a patch of bad weather, and they were inside.

"You don't know unless you give her a chance," _no, you don't, you don't know a thing, you have no right to talk about me like that_

"A chance for what?" _a chance for who cares, you have no right to talk about me_

"Let's send her to Braggart, then we'll see," _oh yes you'll see, you'll see, you have no right to talk_

"He'll crush her," _you have no right_ but now fear was creeping in, draining her confidence – fear of all the unfamiliar names, fear of the unfamiliar world, fear of the unfamiliar everything and fear that the Marquis was right, whatever he was talking about, fear swept across her mindfields and coloured them a sickly grey –

 _–_ _they are talking about you, insulting you, don't let them treat you like dirt, like socks to be darned –_

– "Um," she said, and their gazes muffled her. Agatha looked surprised, but the Marquis' puffy face seemed haughty, contemptuous. His black eyes told Martha that she was something to be inspected, measured, weighed and found too light; and she couldn't match it, couldn't resist…

But then Agatha broke the silence. "It's settled, then," she said, and there was a finality about the tone. "Martha, you'll go to Pewter."

"… I… I will?"

And the Marquis relented, bowed to Agatha. "It will be her death," he said.

"I won't hear another word from you, Lonnie," she replied, and – the man continued his bow, then drifted away, out through the door he had come in.

Agatha sat down by the table. "I'm sorry about that," she said simply.

"I… why will it be, be my death?" Martha shuddered. It was one thing to imagine death on your own terms, but to have it prophesised by a stranger…

"Well, I have to admit…" The woman looked a little bit worried now. "Lonnie's got – Lonnie, that's the Marquis – he's got a bit of a point. You've been safe in the world up there, right?"

"I…"

"You have. 'Safe' is not the same as 'interesting'. But down here, it's… different. Parts of the world are missing. You're not prepared for it right now, but… Well, I hope Braggart can help with that."

"Who's… Braggart?"

Agatha sighed. "Well, glossing over all his better qualities… Let's just say he deserves his name."


	8. Chapter 7: Wick

**WICK**

 _It was never home._

 _It was never mine._

 _It was yours. Always yours. Always your little hiding place._

 _All this time ago, we appeared. And the World built itself around us. The Rules were written before your eyes, the colours were melted into place like candles being dripped. But you don't remember that._

 _I do. I remember every second that passed in those early days. I covered my eyes, but I heard them with my ears, smelled them with my nose, felt them on my skin as the hot tallow burned me. Every single second etched into my body, digging the trenches along which ran the green fires of time itself. Seams and furrows and wrinkles, pale and itchy reminders of that distant time when I was still whole._

 _And the World came into being, at the cost of my own. Because the World didn't want me. The World was frightened of me._

 _Because I am frightening._

 _I am_ terrifying _._

 _I strike fear into the hearts of the strong, because I am the way by which the weak can destroy them. I strike fear into the hearts of the weak, because I can vanquish them without the aid of the strong. I am the reason fear exists, because fear is insecurity and insecurity is what I wreak._

 _That is why the World surrounded me, engulfed me, smothered me. I was imprisoned in its centre._

 _And the World built you a home at the centre of my prison. You were my guardian, put there because you were the perfect gaoler. You could not rebel. You could not break the Rules. Helpless in your home, you were too unimaginative to break free._

 _The years passed, and the candle burned. The smoke that rose from it was my blood, my fat, my saliva, evaporated in the hot fires that had disfigured me. And as the tallow pooled in coloured hillocks atop my cell, the World forgot about me, thought I was securely held back by your unchaotic mind._

 _And yet here you stand, in the rotting dungeons, homeless by my design. Here you stand, in the crumbling remains of the Rules of the World. Here you stand, while the flame moves ever closer._

 _The candle is almost gone._

 _The wick is almost burned down._

 _Soon… the World will burn away._


	9. Chapter 8: Minded

**MINDED**

The corridor, again. Walking, again. Agatha, again.

The Marquis, unfortunately.

He hadn't said anything. Martha would have preferred it if he had. She would have preferred it if he had stopped and blocked her way. She would have preferred it if he turned around, looked down at her, told her she couldn't go to Pewter. She would have preferred it if he started being rude to her, if he insulted her, if he ignored Agatha's warning from earlier.

Or she would have preferred it if he said sorry. If he took back the things he had said about her before. She would like it if he got down on his knees, took her hand and kissed it. She would have preferred him to be nice to her, or not. She would prefer him to _talk_ , or she would prefer him to be quiet if he were to be more rude. She wished Agatha hadn't gone to fetch him before they left. She wanted to walk down the hallway alone. With Agatha, or without. With Mer, or – not at all.

She wished the turtle would speak. She wanted it to have a human mouth and tongue and voice. To be human, like her, and like her at the mercy of moody strangers. To be a companion and a friend, but still a small, wide-eyed creature in her arms. She must be able to carry Mer. But it must be her equal and confidante.

She would love the walls around her to be whole. She'd love if the ceiling were pristine and the floor without holes, she would prefer to be walking through a beautiful building with dainty décor and big windows and that the place didn't exist at all. She would prefer it if the floorboards didn't creak like crinoline caskets, if her steps didn't sound like shouting cannons. She didn't want the noise to be there, or she wanted it to be there while she were elsewhere. She would have preferred it if the corridor vanished from around her and she floated through slippery white until she landed in a world where this world didn't exist.

She missed her house in Pallet and she didn't. She would have preferred it if she had never left, and yet she wanted the leaving to have happened, but differently. She wasn't going back to Pallet, but the walls there were whole and the house smelled of citrus and of wood that hadn't rotted decades ago and there were flowers and a lovely little kitchen and her favourite chair, the green one with the little tatted tuffet, and where she didn't have to go through a sewer to get in or out but – she simply never left…

She liked that she'd left. She just didn't like where she'd ended up…

"Here we are," said Agatha. She had stopped outside the broom cupboard, the one that connected to the sewers. A wary little smile streaked across the woman's lips and it told Martha nothing, yet it worried her.

"Well…" Agatha said. She looked down. Cleared her throat, looked up again, went on: "Good luck, Martha. Lonnie will get you safe to Pewter. Braggart will take over from there" – hold on, but –

"If there's anything left for him to take over," said the Marquis, but –

And Agatha gave him a stern look and said "Shut it," but –

– the realisation hit Martha like a dropped penny, and since there was no more room it pushed out the words, "You're not coming?"

And Agatha... loosened. It was as though a string overhead had been cut, and everything fell down – the shoulders drifted forward, the fingers untensed, the knees folded and the cheeks sagged; the neck bent and the hair fell forward – and then Martha had a closer look, and realised that the changes had not been big, but they added up to a dejected whole.

"No, I'm not," the old woman replied. "I can't – I have a job to do."

"W-what job?"

"My job," was her reply, and then the Marquis cut in, "We _all_ have jobs to do. As would you, if only you had stayed in your place." He bowed at her. "It's something we call _responsibility_."

"Please, Lonnie, stop doing that. Just… get her where she needs to be."

"That I will do. But no further."

"But…" That was all Martha could say. There may have been words to counter what Agatha and the Marquis were doing, but not what they were saying, and so Martha shut her mouth.

"We'll meet again later," said Agatha.

Then she left, and her back met Martha's gaze.

Now they were two.

"Ladies first," said the Marquis with mock etiquette, bowing again as he opened the door through to the… moat.

Martha had changed her mind. She didn't prefer him to start acting nice. She preferred him to stop existing.


	10. Chapter 9: Morass

**MORASS**

The world was white, then grey, then a purplish black – and then green, needles, soft soil underfoot. There was a coolness to the air, and the unmistakable smell of pine trees, pinecones.

In front of her: a forest. Underneath her feet: muddy, liquid soil. Nowhere to be seen: the city.

"Where…" started Martha.

"Outside Viridian Forest," replied the Marquis.

She looked around again. They were, in a sense, outside a forest. However, they were also, in a different sense, inside a forest. It towered up on all sides, great spears of pine and pillars of beech, only a careless breath away from Martha – covering ground everywhere, except a narrow streak of road spurting out behind them. In the distance, through the skywards-trained spikes of green, she could only just now make out a spot of grey, a patch of roof.

"Is that… Pewter?" she said.

"No," the Marquis said. "That is Viridian. Pewter –" and he grabbed her shoulders and turned her around, towards the forest, towards the tallest of the darkest and the greenest and then he went on – "Pewter is straight through there."

At first, it didn't bother her that the Marquis hadn't dropped her off in Pewter, like he had promised Agatha. The thought didn't even cross her mind. It couldn't cross her mind, because it was eclipsed by his hands. They were still there on her shoulders, pushing down heavily on her. She felt the smoothness through her clothes – no roughness, no sensation that he had ever picked up a mop or done the washing up. They were hands that had never gripped a tool or a weapon. They were hands that shook other hands, coated in a protective layer of words. And they felt like dumbbells and slime. She squirmed, tried to signal to him to let go.

"How – how far?" she managed.

"Scarcely half a day's walk," he answered. She felt a nudge on her heel. "Perhaps a whole, in those shoes."

She clenched her free hand, rubbed fingers against palm. Relished the roughness of her skin. Hardened patches stabbed into the furrows inside her fist – _the hand of a working woman,_ she knew, _the hand of a worthy woman,_ she knew, and if she turned around and slapped the Marquis in the face the hand would be too light to actually hurt him, but she would imprint on his cheek a map of her hand, imprint on his cheek the marks of nineteen years' housework.

"You t, told Agatha, you'd take me to Pewter."

"Hardly. I told her I would take you where you needed to be."

His hands stayed. Like he was trying to leave an impression of his pristine, heavy appendages on her. She strained every tendon, set her elbows so her skin would stay as straight and undented as possible. They were her shoulders, and the weight she carried on them would be hers and nobody elses.

"I need to be, to be here." She stated it as plainly as she could, but a question mark still crept in.

"I wouldn't say that," said the Marquis. "Personally, I would rather see you back in Pallet. You would be _so_ much safer there, you know. You have no _idea_ –" and here he leant in, his mouth only inches from her ear, his voice so close she could almost feel it like a punch in the neck – "absolutely _no_ idea how dangerous it is out there. Anything could happen."

"Yes." She didn't turn around, stared straight ahead at the forest.

"Anytime. Anywhere."

"Yes."

"At anyone's hands…" His voice faded to a prod, a mere pinch.

"Is, is that a threat?"

"That is a very big word for you," he replied. "Try not to go above your station. Call it… a kindly warning."

She didn't answer.

He withdrew, pulled his hands away.

"Until I see you again," he said. He probably bowed. But he was gone.

She'd show him. Some way or other.

She unclenched her fist and stepped forth.


	11. Chapter 10: Movement

**MOVEMENT**

Martha held Mer out in front of her, with arms stretched as far as they would go. In the chilled evening light, its skin somehow looked immensely… pale. The solid blueness of its arms and legs turned into a sickly pallor; the patched brown on its shell became the scabs on a recently dried-out wound. It grew smaller in her grasp; its shell contracting, its arms turning into twigs before wizening away, its head dripping away until it was a mere stain on the neck. The tail drooped like condensation, melted into nothingness.

"Don't expect a Blastoise from it," Agatha had said. "It's not going to live too long."

It was Martha's only Pokémon, and it was going to die before its time. Of some unknown, unexplained ailment. "Pale," Agatha had said, and she probably had something to compare it to. Martha did not. But now that they were out of the flame-lit corridors of the Blood King's castle, and into the setting sun, it had lost colour. Like the yellow and orange beams were erasers, furiously scrabbling away at the little tortoise.

And what about her? She, too, was 'released'. The sunlight could be eating away at her, too. Her arms could be disappearing by the minutest second; they looked warmer, more colourful, where shadows covered them…

Shade. Shade was what she needed, she and Mer, away from the hungry golden rays.

Martha didn't know, when she stood in the darkness underneath the tree crowns, whether she'd run or walked there. All she knew was that the ground underneath her had changed; the soil didn't feel like the ground proper any more, but like a lid that shielded the earth below. And the air was more solid; the smell of old lay around her like a blanket. The sun couldn't get at them here; they were safe, insulated. She sat down, leant her back against a tree trunk.

"What do, do you think," she muttered to Mer, as she put it down on her knee. "Are we safe?"

It didn't reply; only stared.

"Did you lose your voice," she said. The thought didn't strike her uncomfortably. If they were already that far along, if they were already voiceless: why not just remain seated, wait for her toes to sprout moss and her fingers to sprout mushrooms? Why not lock eyes with Mer and keep her gaze right _there_ , there in the middle of those big black pupils, until she could see the sea whisking back and forth in them; and then continue staring as the eyes rotted away, as they poured down like a messy vitreous porridge and revealed the decaying contents of the turtle's head –

– but then Mer said, "Skwer."

And even though she had heard it for the first time only two days ago, the voice still washed over her like a wave of familiarity. It stroked against her skin like silk and wafted warm sweet air into her ears.

 _We can't give up here,_ the voice said. _We have a job to do._ It said _now is the time to move forward._

She had left home already; she'd committed.

She had told herself she would take care of Mer; she'd promised.

And she had told herself she would show the Marquis. She'd vowed. She would get stronger, and then she would – show him. She would get stronger than him, and then she would be the one whispering harshly into _his_ ear from behind. She would take him to a field, miles away from home, and tell him he was worthless. And then she would leave him.

But before all that, she needed to get to Pewter. To meet this Braggart person that Agatha had talked about.

"Skwer," came Mer's voice, and Martha got up.

"Let's go," she said, hugging the turtle close again.

The forest stretched out in front of her, steeped with stripes of brown in the foreground and deepening to a murky green in the distance. It was foreign territory, a place she had never been before. And yet, it was shelter. Home to a million animals, a billion plants, a trillion bacteria. There was no reason it couldn't be home to a single human.

She took a step forward, and her foot landed on a protruding root and on the doorstep. She pushed away a branch and open the door, stepped into the hallway that was tiled with dead leaves and needles. In seven steps, or seven hundred yards, she would be standing in the living room but that is not where she is going. She is going to the glade that is the kitchen, which is through the living room and ten steps to the left, which is north by northwest and two miles away, it will take her forty minutes, or maybe just four seconds.

She will continue through the kitchen, making sure to step over the orange juice spill in the middle of the floor, and were she still living here she would have gone straight through the cleaning cupboard to fetch a mop but she instead goes past the little alcove, and she heads for the back door of the kitchen, which leads out to the back garden but then she remembers that the door won't open any more after last year's frost. She walks up to the sheer cliff face and pushes her shoulder against it, but it won't budge.

She turns around, and walks back the way she came, sidestepping a chair or a tree so she doesn't stumble and she heads into the living room towards the other back door, which is directly to the northeast and both five miles and eight seconds away and leads away from Pewter. She knows it will be open, as long as she remembers to turn the lock before trying the handle –

– and with the crack of a twig she was standing at the edge of the forest again, but the _other_ end – where a sign announced, 'Pewter City: Two miles ahead'. She could only barely read it through the barren light of the moon overhead, but those words were definitely there.

"N, nearly there," she said, glancing down at Mer. She realised she was out of breath. After only walking back and forth through her own house. She was going to have to get a lot stronger. Her feet were hurting, too; she looked down and saw that they were patched with mud; her leggings were torn and brambles had cut into her shins, drawing blood.

At least there was nobody around to see her. Nobody could, after all.

Leaving her new home behind, she set off towards the city.


End file.
